Katie Beswick

Church-shunned,
we sought the spirit

in the tarot I spread
across bed sheets;

Three of Swords,
my great stabbed heart.

Syrup golden at whisky bottle bottom —
oh, sometimes it met us halfway there.

Or in the honeysuckle waft
at the steep top of the lane,

those years we lived alone.
Bats swooping at river dusk;

perfect demons.
In Stratford, that mad guy,

used to sit in a deckchair; England flag,
blessing us in coarse Northern —

holy water as a can of Tennent’s Super.
One time I found the spirit

in the stall of a bathroom at a bistro
in Lisbon. The tiny corner sink,

white tiles glazed as teeth
in the mouth of a fallen angel.

I sat on the bowl, called for you; cried.
On the 422 we used to ride

out to that suburban hotel
where we fell in love and waited

tables. Light was streaming through
clouds in jets; gleaming as water.

The bus vibrated its silky hum.
Look, you said, pointing through windows

where tower blocks rose luminous.
The spirit slid up through pavement cracks.

Katie Beswick is a writer from south east London. Recent poems have appeared in Ink Sweat & Tears, Harpy Hybrid Review, English: Journal of the English Association and Mukoli: The Magazine for Peace. Her debut chapbook Plumstead Pram Pushers is forthcoming from Red Ogre Review in July. 2024. In March 2024 her poetry installation ‘Being Slaggy’ was a sellout feature of Camden People’s Theatre SPRINT Festival. She teaches at Goldsmiths, University of London.